Day 11 - Sea legs.

This morning we had an early start, for us, and after an breakfast, of a mars bar and banana for me and a yogurt bar and banana for Ray, we were on the road before 8.

However, before talking about the day I did not enjoy last night as we slept in a dormitory with about 6 other blokes, who were noisy and who got up in the middle of the night, but the scary thing was the guy that spoke in his sleep. It was incoherent whispers, but very creepy.

The cycle route No.6 out of Newton Stewart took us through some glorious bluebell woods and old woodland.



Then up into pine plantation.



The only problem was that the road got quite bumpy and covered in gravel. This meant it was not too long before I got a puncture in my back wheel.

We then went up further into heather covered hills.


This went up and up until 1300 ft. This did though give us a fabulous down hill.





After about 30 miles we reached a small town and Ray got the second puncture of the day after hitting a pot hole.
Just after fixing the puncture Ray was cut up by a car turning left.

Just outside Ayr we stopped for something to eat at a little shop just outside Ayr, which was pushing its Robbie Burns connection as much as it could.
Ray had a cold Scots pie, yuck, while I had a healthy fruit loaf (the inside of a Christmas cake).
We then went through a rather dour Ayr.

Out if Ary we picked up Cycle track No7. again.

We winded our way along the cycle path. Which was marked by solar powered cats eyes.



As we got closer to Androssen the stronger the cross winds became. Which meant I was getting quiet cold.
3 in Rays back wheel again.
We then had puncture number three again in Ray's back wheel.
At which time i texted Dave to ket him know we were not too far away from the ferry. Unfortunately Dave did not get the message in time to meet up with us.

We reached the ferry at 2:35, which was much closer than we had expected.

The ferry crossing was a bit rough, apparently there are gusts up to 80mph, cycling legs are not the same as sea legs. It took an hour to cross to Arran, and we chatted chap who is camping in Lockranza tonight.

Arran is beautiful, and when they turn the wind and rain off it must be a nice place to walk in the hills.

Coming out of the hills down into Lochranza we were nearly going backwards due to the wind.

Less than a mile out, I had the 4th puncture of the day, but chose to walk to the Youth Hostel rather than try and fix it at the side of the road.

To night has been a fun packed night of fixing punctures, so that we have some spares for the next 5 days.

This is a picture of town we landed at, I'll check the spelling tomorrow.



This is a picture of The youth hostel and bay at Lockranza, and the wild deer.







Ray is now snoring gently, and I need to get some sleep to as we have to catch the 8:15 ferry and cycle 100 miles tomorrow.

Cheers
Paul

Riding the length of the UK so you don't have to ;)
You can sponsor me at
https://www.justgiving.com/Margaret-beattie

Day 10 - I'll take the high road and you take the low road.

We heard our first Scottish accent when having a good hearty breakfast.

I did not get a picture out of the window this morning, as Ray's bed had the windows. So here is one of the guest house.




Our ride started this morning with a puncture.



We cycled up to Gretna and took the obligatory photo of the "Welcome to Scotland" sign. We had to move on quickly as others wanted to take their photo.



We then had fantastic views going along the Galway firth.



Although we appeared to be heading directly towards this rather ominous peak.



Fortunately we turned away from it and headed into this beautiful area.







As you will see it was a gloriously sunny day. Just what we wanted after yesterday.

We reached Dumfries after about 30 miles,which we initially thought was a ghost town until we got into the centre. We went to a fantastic old bike shop. There the guy running it and his sister, cleaned and oiled both our chains, fitted new brake pads to my rear brakes that had worn down to the metal, pumped up Ray's tyre and gave us a half bottle of dry oil ( don't ask me, but it oils the chain! ).




While they were doing that, we went to a café/bar and had some very slowly served lunch. The woman running it had an old chip helping, but he was more of a hindrance than a help as he had to ask her about everything he tried to do and he could not deal with any customer request.

On our way out I'd Dumfries, we passed a wedding with a piper.




We then needed to decide whether we were going to take the northern hilly road or the easier but longer southern route. After talking to Dave, and a couple of people on route, we opted for a more southernly route but with some extra cycle path to reduce the hills.

The cycle path route gave us some exceptional good views.
Of areas where we were the only people for miles around.







To finish the day I had s puncture 6 miles from Newton Stewart, but Ray refused to take picture saying that I did not look like I was pumping up a tyre.

The hostel tonight looks rough on the outside but is really nice on the inside, with a friendly but brusk guy.



Although Ray was very keen to show the bike chain mark I got when putting the bikes into the bike shed, as apparently it is called an AC, for amateur chain mark.



Cheers
Paul

Riding the length of the UK so you don't have to ;)
You can sponsor me at
https://www.justgiving.com/Margaret-beattie

Day 9 - It does not rain inside a cloud.

Now we are into the second half in days but not on mileage. We have done 429 miles out of 1115. Tomorrow we will pass the half way point on mileage.

Today's route starts off hill as we head out of the Pennines to the M6, and is then less hilly as we follow the M6 to Carlisle.

You can see the planned route here
http://g.co/maps/t74va

The usual morning view from our room.




This is where the bikes were stabled overnight.




We both struggle with the routine in the morning of replacing and organising our bags for the day. We try to separate our clothes into clean an non-clean, and to have wet weather clothes quickly accessible, but even after a week it is still a struggle.

There are loads of curlews here which is a nice unexpected sound.

This is where we stayed last night.



We had to make our own breakfast this morning, so last night we got some bacon, bread and duck eggs from the little shop opposite the youth hostel. The eggs made excellent scrambled eggs, and we boiled some to take with us for a snack.

The route today took us through some superb scenery.









We reached 1070 feet.


This was an owl that we saw nestled in the fork of a tree, it barely moved which allowed us to take this photo.



It rained until this point, where cycling up a very steep hill we entered a cloud, where we proceeded to get soaked through.










Eventually we crossed the M6. Now only 50 miles to go for the day.










The is a strong correlation between the number of photos taken and the number and steepness of the hills.




A duck egg stop.



Ray specially chose this route today as it went along a road that runs between the two carriage ways if the M6, it was rather weird.



We then headed out of the hills and down towards Penrith, but still with really nice views.








In Penrith I needed to visit a bike shop, as my front gears finally stopped working. They had been getting harder and harder to change up, and the cable was starting to fray as I had broken it when fitting it in the first place. So rather than fight with it in the rain, I paid the money and got it fixed properly. I also asked them to loosen the right pedal so that I can get it off for going onto the plane.
I wanted more brake pads but they did not have any. So will have to keep looking for them.
We chose to wait in a café whilst the bike was fixed which suited everyone.
As the bike shop was the last time I saw my debit card, I gave now had to cancel it. I probably just dropped it in the shop as it had not been used since then, but I can't find it anywhere. So it was the right decision only to bring that card.

After Penrith it was a long straight road with only fairly bad hills, into Carlisle.

The Cherry Grove guest house is very nice, and the landlady has already returned two bags of washing that we gave her. So will should not smell as bad over the next few days.

For dinner we went to a typically English all you can eat Chinese restaurant and had no alcohol. So it has been our first "drink" free night of the trip.

I will take some photos of the guest house tomorrow.

It is only 10pm but we are both exhausted, and Ray has already started to snore. So goodnight.

Cheers
Paul

Riding the length of the UK so you don't have to ;)
You can sponsor me at
https://www.justgiving.com/Margaret-beattie

Day 8 - Every classification of road possible

Thanks to Steve and Sarah for a very pleasant evening in the Bear and Billet pub, which was rather busy due to the horse racing taking place yesterday in Chester.
The table was reserved with this notice, so at least we were also able to sit down.




This morning's view I think shows how housing shapes the way we live.



It is again early, we have been waking much earlier than expected, between 6 and 6:30 every day.

This picture shows the detail of some of the chimneys opposite.



They don't make them like that anymore. Lots of new houses have false chimneys fitted just for show.

The Sycamore guest house was very nice and Chris could not be more helpful, and cooking a great breakfast.

Steve met us in the morning and cycled into the centre of Chester with us to see us on our way. Which was a nice touch, and I hope Sarah did not mind.
We were also glad that the concierge had looked after Steve's bike for the night, it did look nice and clean again. Ours were still dirty having been kept in the garage overnight.

Today was a hard day of 72 miles, through lots of town and along busy roads.
We firstly went through Chester, then Runcorn, St. Helens, Skelmersdale, all of which are outlying towns from Liverpool. After a small amount of countryside we reach Leyland and Preston again busy towns. From Preston we then slowly climbed for 20 miles out to Slaidburn in the foothills of the Pennines.
This links to most of the map for today, it misses off the last 20 miles.
http://g.co/maps/gxtbg

Today we have cycled on :
Busy A road dual carriageways,
Busy A roads,
B roads,
Over bridges,
Through housing estates,
Non-metalized roads,
On cycle paths,
Bridle ways (named Four Acre Lane),
Farm tracks,
Old tram ways,
Old railway lines,
Across fords and
Down a river.

Here are pictures of some of them.
















After leaving Chester we passed through Helsby which is where my brother and I had spent a term at the local school.









Now seeing Helsby, I had not realised that there was a large hill behind it, it would have been good to have gone up to the top.

We stopped in Preston for a late lunch at this very old bakery, apart from the toilets, according to Ray, is was very good. we had a baked potato, bacon Barm (which meant a large roll), flap jacks and milk shakes.


We stayed under the cover outside the café until the rain stopped, which meant that we hardly got wet at all today. Although we did stop a couple of times to put waterproofs on and off.

Once we left Preston we headed into the Pennine hills and again had fantastic views.












One of the views we were not expecting was this of a keen farmer that had a dislike to moles digging up his field. Not really sure what harm a mole does to a sheep field.




After a few steep ups and downs, on which Ray achieved 44.3mph, I was too scared! We reached our diggs in the YHA at Slaidburn.
As we have to cook breakfast for ourselves tomorrow we nipped to the local shop across the road, and stocked up with bacon, duck eggs, bread and milk for the morning.

Tonight's dinner will be in the pub, where we hope to see Dave, and I hope they have wifi so that I can send this as there is absolutely no phone signal again.

There was no wifi, there router was broken, even their pay phone did not work.

Cheers
Paul

Riding the length of the UK so you don't have to ;)
You can sponsor me at
https://www.justgiving.com/Margaret-beattie